Talking about death to a child

At dinner tonight, we got on the subject of the new movie "The Dark Knight" (new batman movie), and it was mentioned that the person playing the joker (Heath Ledger) had killed himself. This brought on a series of questions and serious concern from Draven that we attempted to explain. We explained that it was an accident and that he had taken too much medicine...you see where this is going. Anyway, we went on to explain that we are very careful about medicine and that what happened to Mr. Ledger would not happen to him. We also tried to explain that it was the person playing the Joker, which can also be confusing to a child.

Our question is, has this type of topic come up with your child and how did you go about explaining it to them? Draven is 5 now and is very curious about everything and how things work. Any comments or recommendations?

Swim Lessons

Thanks to the generosity of Aunt Carol, Draven and Brody have been participating in swim lessons at the YMCA in Halls for the last four weeks. We started the season with a trip to Target for new Spiderman 3 swim trunks for Draven and a new "Cars" beach towel for Brody. After that they were ready to swim and proceeded to remind me of that fact several times before the first lesson arrived one day later! Every Tuesday & Thursday Aunt Carol or I would drive them there for their 30 minute lesson. By the end of the lessons they knew how to kick, hold their breath, make bubbles in the water, and swim on their backs. They successfully became "Pikes" and are ready to be "Eels!"

One thing that made the experience more "exciting" for me was the fact that the lessons ended at 5:45, and on Thursdays Draven had to be at soccer practice at 6:30-all the way back near our house. So, we'd rush back to the locker room, change clothes, eat a dinner of sandwiches, chips, and carrots in the car, and make it to the field just in time. phew...I guess the madness of 3 active boys has begun!

Easter Sunday

Easter was especially fun this year. For the 3rd year in a row, Jennifer has planned a pot luck salad dinner at our place. Everyone brought a salad type item(s) such as egg salad, asian chicken salad, fruit salad, tuna salad, and of course, tossed salad. For dessert, we had some delicious lemon pineapple pie and lemon poundcake with chocolate icing. Uncle Jason and Auntie Kristin were in town visiting from D.C. and hung out with us as we watched a lot of basketball. Draven was excited about the basketball at first, but I don't think he realized the amount of basketball that is on T.V. during March Madness. Over the weekend, we also spent some time grilling hamburgers and helping the Easter Bunny hide some treat filled eggs around the yard as well as filling up the boy's sandbox with sand. The boys were super excited to find that the Easter Bunny did that for them. We've had an empty sandbox for sometime now and Draven has mentioned several times that we needed to get sand for it.

On a side note, Pop and I spent most of Saturday driving down to Dillard, GA, which is basically located at the point where TN, SC, NC, and GA all meet. He needed a ride down to purchase a new navy blue Chevy truck that he and his brother found...great looking manly truck. The drive down was absolutely amazing...probably the most beautiful drive I have ever taken. The drive took us through the mountains, down the highway 411 stretch that takes you through Cherokee NC, Clingmans Dome, the Chimneys, etc...you get the picture.

Building our Front Line

McCale, Bird, Parish….We’re building our basketball team starting with a strong front line. As many of you may know, when a boy turns 3 (2 for girls) you can measure them, double that amount, and it’s a pretty accurate representation of how tall they will be give or take an inch. When Draven was 3, he was 42 inches tall, which translates to 7ft tall. Brody measured out to be 40 inches tall, which translates to 6ft 8 inches tall. Looks like Draven will be our Center, and Brody will be our Power Forward, which is appropriate for Brody’s personality. He would rather run over someone as opposed to run around them. At this point, PJ is very close in size to what Draven was so we’ll see what he measures in a couple years…he may be the very first 7ft tall point guard. ;o) ~ Pierce

Pictures from Brody's Party

Brody Turns 3

Saturday, February 16th, Brody celebrated his 3rd birthday with a Thomas the Train birthday party. His Pop, Grammie, Grandpa, Nana, Uncle Bill, friend Brielle, friend Ally, and family were in attendance at the party. Before the party started Daddy brought home the train table that had been at Nana & Grandpa's house. The rest of the day it was difficult to tear Brody away from it! Luckily his guests were almost as interested in it as he was. The kids made Thomas doorhangers with their names on them, played with the trains, ate lunch, played with trains, and played with trains some more. I tried to get them to dance to If You're Happy, Chicken Dance, etc. but Brody started crying when I tried to get him to move away from the trains. I think he had fun though, and he has been playing with the train table almost non-stop since.
This morning he woke up before the other boys and immediately wanted to "go play trains." Pierce told him he could as long as he didn't push any of the sound buttons. He did as he was told, but I heard him in the LR making his own sounds-"toot, toot;" "here comes Thomas;" etc. Tomorrow we are going to have Brody's picture taken, and I'm going to measure him (we get to see how tall he's going to be when he grows up)! It will be interesting to see how close to Draven's measurements he is...

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